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Is this a Yong Shoutian bottle? The last two I located turned out to be Qiao. This one appears to be Ma Chao fighting Cao Cao possibly at the battle of Jiameng Pass since it looks like an ambush depicted on the bottle. This appears to be signed Yong Shoutian.

Brian, sorry to differ but I think that bottle is "signed" Yong Shoutian but is painted by Liu Qiao.

I have devoted a great deal of time to studying these two artists, so the following are my arguments.

I have yet to see a genuine YST bottle signed horizontally with only his signature. I have some genuine YST bottles and all of mine are signed vertically, include his seal, and contain some calligraphy. Same with the examples I have seen in books. The one exception is the amber glass bottles as seen in the Marquis of Exeter book that are unsigned and those may have been the bottles he trained on when learning the art of inside painting. There are numerous other differences that we've discussed at length in another thread.

I think YST was a great artist but his student, Liu Qiao, was way too prolific with sloppy work attributed to his master and that makes YST less appreciated among snuff bottle collectors.

Now I don't mean to slam Liu Qiao because when he took the time he could turn out a fairly nice bottle.

The one you have posted is a better example of his warrior bottles, but in my opinion it is not a genuine YST bottle.

The ongoing discussion about Samson's Ye Zhongsan bottle reminds me of another argument I have about these bottles.

It seems like the more of a master an artist was, the less he repeated subjects. For example Ding Erzhong repeated bottles very rarely, the Ye family produced bottles for over 50 years with 4 artists and still didn't repeat a theme to the extent that this warrior bottle has been repeated. We had a hard time finding the women in the window scene on Samson's bottle.

But the truth is really just right in front of you by comparing the bottles side by side. I am attaching a side by side of the two artists.

So my thought is that these warrior bottles were mass produced with the same theme by Liu Qiao. Liu Qiao produced about as many women under the tree bottles as he did warrior bottles. There must be thousands of them judging by how often they come up at auction. IMO a true master artist would never paint just two themes over and over again.

Now one might argue that Yong Shoutian was not a true artist, but it is my belief that the mass production by this student and the wide acceptance that these copies are his work is why this artist is not appreciated as a master artist.

George and Pat, I would be extremely interested to hear your opposing arguments.

There are so many variables to consider when looking at suspected student paintings, that how about if we just pick a few obvious features that we can count on regarding positive ID for YST to start with..

We know that YST enjoyed large bottles to include clear, blue, and yellow. There is a noticeable style for his painting of facial features, color palette, and horses, and warrior attire.

Just like any other bottle, we look at all the features and if there are more features that confirm a bottles date etc., than the number of red flags, then we can be put to some ease that we are on track for dating or confirming an artist.

The attached paintings I believe are straight forward YST style. Note the way the horses are painted, the large features to the warriors attire. I do not know the correct name for, but especially note the parts that extend the length of their arms. The color palette is really straight forward with the exception that as Bill points out he was also known to also use a much more vibrant color palette.

I think the bottle in your last post on the right is a good example for the above basics, and also your very first bottle in this thread, and as well this bottle attached from Bills site. For me all three of these are without question YST just based on the few features mentioned.

Your bottle on the left shows completely different style of horses, clothing, facial features of which some were not even filled in, and as well the color palettes are off.

Thanks George.I'm trying to see your points, but am not convinced. In fact, I think the colorful one you linked to on Bill's site is a third artist - and we don't know who he is because he never signed his bottles. There are so many differences to me besides the colors and them not being signed - the riders and horses are smaller in relation to the bottle, the horses legs don't look like spaghetti noodles, the drawing is tighter, the hats are different, look at how defined the weapons are, more attention is paid to the landscape. I could go on and on about the differences. The only similarity is they are both painting the same type of warrior scene.

These artists are as different to me as Picasso was to Dali and Dali was to Miro.

So I have a question for you. How do you account for the exact same battle scene signed Liu Qiao? The bottle I posted here that you say is a good example of YST's work is signed Liu Qiao.

The taller bottle I had as Yong Shoutian and dated as Wu-Hsu so 1898. The signature on the shorter bottle I'm not as confident about as Yong Shoutian, it's certainly written in a thicker "pen".

Both were bought together about 15 or so years ago from an antique shop that dealt with Asian antiques although not exclusively.

I haven't really examined them yet but the use of gold appears on both bottles but the horses in the shorter bottle have a simplicity compared to those in the taller bottle and the manes and tails of the horses in the taller bottle have been almost smudged to make them more hair like.

Oh and a Happy New Year to all.

Regards, Adrian. (I will try and add better pictures of the signatures when I can).

In my own collection I have a number of copies of the same subject (a scene with ladies in a garden pavilion, with a boy in a tree) by Ye Zhongsan the Elder, the unquestioned 'master' of the Apricot Grove Studio (Ye Family), and similarly, by Yan Yutian, a number of copies of an eagle perched on a knarled pine tree. And I've seen a number of copies of 'Resting the Shoulders' by Ma Shaoxuan. My example is A-25 in "Worlds". I also have a couple of examples by Bi Rongjiu of 'Scholars in a Bamboo Grove' (one is A-17 in "Worlds").

As far as we know, Ding Erzhong, Yu Shuyun and a number of others were non-commercial artists, who painted what they chose; but most of the artists were commercial, painting to support their families. And they painted what the buyer wanted. And they each had an album of designs that customers could choose from.

Let's not let late 20th C. fantasies of 'artistic freedom to create' muddy the waters; most of the IPSB treasures most of us collect or desire to collect, were made as part of the cultural milieu of late Qing China and Republic of China, but at the commercial level.

Thank you for the comments on the bottles and I'm with you both in terms of one being by YST and the other by a student. Although similar they show enough differences to cast doubt.

Whilst they are two of the better bottles in my collection I am not that much of a fan of his work. They feel a bit two dimensional to me and there is a simplistic element about them rather like older forms of more normal art before they learnt to render scenes in a more natural way. It's almost as if working within the confines of inside painting took the painting back a few steps compared to how it might have been done in a more normal form of art but then that is what places them at their time in IP history I suppose.